


the earth drinks men and their loves like wine

by prettydizzeed



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 09:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11711160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettydizzeed/pseuds/prettydizzeed
Summary: And then Simon stands by the windows, and Raphael wants to capture his arrogance in stained glass, wants to tell him to shut his mouth. He does neither, and it doesn't make it less terrible or less real. It just makes him wish he could stop looking.





	the earth drinks men and their loves like wine

**Author's Note:**

> title from "In the Middle of This Century" by Yehuda Amichal

To begin with, he blames the girl. Trying so hard to be a Shadowhunter, like an equal share in their hatred would be a badge of honor. Disregarding the weight of death, the reasons it is supposed to be final, in favor of keeping one constant in her life. Still, he knows something about skin that burns with the need to belong; her runes, his cross, both of their hands shaking, both of their fingers wondering if it's worth it. This doesn't mean he does not hate her.

He hates _her_ , too, the name echoing through the Hotel long after her screams shrivel. Hates what she's made of him; she was not his sire, but she still coaxed a monster out of his veins, and he blames her, also, for the way the fledgling looks at him. Maybe if they'd had a different first meeting. Maybe if they'd never met at all.

And then Simon stands by the windows, and Raphael wants to capture his arrogance in stained glass, wants to tell him to shut his mouth. He does neither, and it doesn't make it less terrible or less real. It just makes him wish he could stop looking.

He blames the Clave, he blames the legends, he blames the sun. The Clave for making it so they need a weapon, the legends for making them hope for one, the sun for proving it true. He blames whatever fickle magic chose the one person he didn't want to see as an asset, didn't want to use.

There is no place for anything half so disadvantageous as love when you're leading a people, so Raphael grits his teeth until his fangs ache and tries to bargain, tries to steer this to an ending that leaves both of their hearts nonfunctional but whole. But he sees the ferocity in Simon’s face and recognizes it as his own when Camille told him what she'd done to _the mundane, the annoying one; how's your stab wound healing, by the way?_ her fingers trailing across his arm as he forced himself not to make a fist, not yet—he sees a sharp, desperate defensiveness whose depths baptized him a leader, and he lets Simon protect the secrets of someone who will never love him, in the same way Raphael would have done if Simon weren't such a dramatic idiot, if he'd gone all Icarus where only Raphael would see.

So he blames the Shadowhunter, something holy in his veins without ever uttering a Hail Mary while Raphael still gets a migraine during every Lord’s Prayer, something hauntingly ironic about how the man was raised with angels and no God. He does not ask, _Really? The one who let them lock you up?_ He doesn't see Simon enough to say it.

He has an entire clan to protect, even when they'd turn on him if Simon so much as thought it, and so the fact that Simon hasn't thought it will have to be enough. It's more than he expected. And they tell him that the Daylighter called his name in a panic, in fear, before they shook themselves out of the shadows, and he rolls his eyes that cannot cry and says, “And you thought I'd want to know, why, exactly?”


End file.
